The desire for liberation from an oppressive environment often generates tremendous and decisive force. Through it, the personality reaches an unusual level of solidity, feeling incorruptible when the oppression subsides, or when one learns to overcome it with less friction. Then alternatives can be glimpsed. Sometimes it is possible to create a new environment, or at least make an effort to do so, something whose effects can be comforting. When it is not possible, that’s okay too: oppression, when not felt too much, ends up strengthening.
The Individual Takes a Tremendous Step…
The individual takes a tremendous step forward when he starts only accepting advice from those who can serve as role models. In all other cases, it is simply to disregard. By taking this step, mistakes are avoided in no small measure, and the problem of self-assertion is finally overcome. One should listen to those who inspire, and teach others only what they have done.
It Is Great Luck When Fate Takes Care…
It is great luck when fate takes care to relieve us of burdens we did not choose or did not wish to take on. Often, such moves go unnoticed, even though they save us from immense suffering. We can endure more suffering than we realize, as long as it is justified; when we suffer for nothing, even if this is only what it seems to us, we can endure very little. We should never take on the other person’s cross, or everyone’s cross, just because that is what they do. We must carefully choose the justification for future tears, and thank fate when it makes us free to assume our reason for suffering.
We Have Reached a Point Where It Is…
Today, we have reached a point where it is impossible to produce a scholar like the old ones, who kept more or less up to date with everything new in many areas of knowledge. The specialist himself finds it humanly impossible to keep up with advances in his specialty. And so the question arises: how many today are capable of making the great syntheses that are so necessary for orientation? Hard to say… But it is fortunate to note that the major themes have not changed, and that it does not take much to achieve an incomplete but fruitful orientation.